Accurately identifying positions of facial landmarks (e.g., on eyes, nose, mouth, or chin) is important for facial expression recognition, facial tracking, 3D modeling, and the like. For example, a video avatar chat program may use animated “avatars” that are computerized characters that mimic the facial movements of the chat participants. If the person in the chat moves their head to the right, the avatar's head moves to the right. An avatar may be defined as an icon or figure representing a particular person in computer games, Internet forums, video chats, and the like. These avatar chat programs utilize facial landmark detection to extract features of a person's face and then use that data to animate the avatar.